Friday, June 17, 2011

R.I.P. Wild Man Fischer

Damn, we've been losing too many strange/outsider greats lately - in the last six months or so, Captain Beefheart, Zoogz Rift, and now Larry "Wild Man" Fischer have died. Fischer was the paranoid schizophrenic Frank Zappa introduced to the world in the late '60s when he discovered Larry walking down the Sunset Strip hollering his songs at the top of his lungs. He was 66, way too young, but he had heart problems, and a difficult life.

Fun-To-Know Fact: Rhino Record's first ever release was a single of Fischer bellowing out acapella "Go to Rhino Records/on Westwood Boulevard!" Apparently he used to hang around the now-closed store all day. Would there have been a Rhino label without Fischer?

PCL Linkdump has a great post: links to the documentary about Fischer that came out a few years ago, and two whole albums for your downloading pleasure, including an early Zappa-era one, "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer", and one recorded with Smegma in 1975 when those infamous crazies were still in Pasadena in the Los Angeles area before they absconded to Oregon. When I first wrote about this post, I said that the Smegma album "features a fantastic 15 minute destruction of Gladys Knight & The Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia."

Bes tmistake I ever made was to go the wrong theatre at a music movie festival. Instead of Henry Rollins, I got to se Horst, the Harmonica player, and Wild Man Fischer, two equally disturbed souls. R.I.P. Wildman Fischer. The world is a lesser place without you!